How to Give Your Marriage Exactly What It Needs

Janie Seltzer, our Spiritual Director at Ziglar Family, shares her most heartfelt, beautiful, and honorable insights on how to give your marriage exactly what it needs in today’s world.

Janie is a powerful believer in our Ziglar Family mission of supporting families and marriages. The Ziglar Family community is blessed to have her graceful guidance, gracious heart, and bright light in this journey of life and love.

Below, Janie not only helps us understand the bond of marriage through Christ Our Lord but also shares her own imperfect marriage journey with her wonderful husband, Don. Whatever you do, make sure you watch Janie’s video below (with your spouse) to awaken the authentic bond that continuously needs the light and love to which she explains below.

Janie and Don have been married for 46 years and undeniably understand the ups and downs of marriage. In fact, through their journey, they’ve been inspired by Zig Ziglar and his wife’s “The Red Head” loving and supportive marriage journey through their strong bond with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why marriage is a serious and sober thing with great humor:

  • Through courage, there is a way to keep going.

For example, Don has performed over 80 marriages and his favorite story is about a couple celebrating their 60 year anniversary. The couple gathered with their extended family to celebrate 60 years. The husband picks up a glass to toast his wife with the words: “through the ups and downs, wife, you have remained tried and true”. But she couldn’t hear him and so he repeated it, well, she still couldn’t hear him, and after a couple more times… he kindly lowered his mouth to her ear and repeated it a bit louder, and she said: “Yes Dear, I’m tired of you too”. Haha 🙂

This story resonates because it’s about courage and longevity… even when it’s not perfect.

  • It’s miraculous hunting of two people of one

People ask Don and Janie how their marriage has lasted so long and her answer is “We are two good forgivers”. In fact, Don has a plaque he found in an airport that he gifted to Janie that says “Find a heart that will love you at your worst and arms that will hold you at your weakest.”

In a lasting marriage, you must become a heart that will love your spouse at their worst and hold them at their weakest.
It’s who YOU are as a person, not who you marry (become that respectful person).
  • It’s not always easy but you can get through the tough times

In her video, Janie mentions the poem behind her. She wrote the poem during a difficult time in her marriage and so we pasted it below… so you can copy and share it in your home or with someone who might need it:

Marriage —
A serious and sober thing
springs from the holy of holies,
where the convents are kept,
a promise is a promise,
where three are one as a man, a wife, and God unite —
driven by the son’s own sacrifice,
the man loves as the Christ loved the church and dies —
the woman lives to help fill the ache in his side —
a bride radiant in beauty, gentle, quiet, calm —

Spirit of God and seal this sober and serious thing.

Sometimes you need the spirit of God to seal your marriage that seems to be falling apart at the edges… it’s frayed, you’re exhausted, and feel like you want to give up. Some have given up and married more than once.

For those who’ve remained have become more the exception than the rule.

You know that marriage is difficult and is easy to bail. Without the strong cord of the spirit of God running through the marriage, it’s virtually impossible to hang in there.

Remember these three important marriage survival notes from Janie:

1. Marriage is Holy
  • It’s hard
  • One important thing to remember is that you made a covenant in front of God.
  • Don’t take lightly this union

The only D that should be mentioned in your marriage is not divorce… it’s DETERMINATION

  • You can continue on and have the courage to work together through faith and understanding (unless you’re in an abusive relationship)
  • It can be severed through adultery and mortality

As marriage helpers, Don and Janie have seen forgiveness and not giving up on those who have committed adultery.  So don’t give up… reach out to the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Marriage is a character call for all of us
  • Don says in marriage,

“You are not only making a commitment but you have just received a full-length mirror.”

  • Our flaws are reflected back from the eyes of our spouse
  • We see the flaws in our own self
  • Learn to walk in humility
  • Learn through our exposed flaws and our nakedness through our spouse and say “God help me”.
  • We can grow as human beings as God has mysteriously designed
  • Learn to be good forgivers of them and of ourselves

3. Marriage is the opportunity to experience true oneness with another human being

  • Through this process of holding each other up, we become vulnerable, we become one without knowing
  • We grow to know what the other person feels and thinks (without discussion)
  • The hearts longing for intimacy… to become one

Genesis 2:24 A man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

  • Each man must love his wife as Christ himself loved the church and the wife must respect her husband
  • God asks us to do what is most difficult:

To love and respect the flawed human being (not the Princess and Prince Charming we thought we were marrying). So, she asked, “I can respect Don if he will be worthy of my respect”.

Marriage has become a convent with God. This hasn’t been easy for Don and Janie but she encourages you to dig deep because you will find that God will step in and help you to find deeper companionship — with him and each other.

Lean into God, lean into intimacy, and lean into trust because God will help you.

You can catch Janie at 8 am PST on Sundays over at Zig Ziglar’s Facebook Lives. We look forward to seeing her and hearing her beautiful words of wisdom and faith every Sunday. Thank you, Janie!!

If you need human help in your marriage, Don and Janie help many couples each year.  Go to Hearthideaway.com or hiddenlife.com to learn, get help, and hope for your marriage. They’ve heard it all and nothing is surprising to them. You can simply unpack your dirty laundry and find it to be clean again.

Janie’s Final Notes for all of us:

I pray that you will rest into the help of heaven to find what you need for you made a covenant — a holy, a sober, and serious covenant before God when you said I do. And I pray that you will say all over again: “I do, I do”.

 

Amen to Janie and her gracious heart to help others.

What’s the biggest struggle in your marriage (in today’s world)?

2019-10-07T10:52:29+00:00

3 Comments

  1. Tetyana Cahling October 6, 2019 at 9:20 am - Reply

    Thanks a lot
    It’s a great message

    • Jen October 7, 2019 at 10:52 am - Reply

      You are so welcome and awesome to hear!! 🙂

      • Janie Seltzer October 9, 2019 at 2:11 pm - Reply

        Tatyana, Thank you for letting me know that you were helped! Keep on keeping on! Warmly, Janie

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